Family Court, Coercive Control and the Cost of Seeking Protection

The Email That Undid Me

30 August 2024

On 16 July 2024, I attended the fifth hearing in the child arrangements proceedings concerning my son.

I have tried repeatedly to write about what happened that day, but I have struggled to find the words. The hearing ended several weeks ago, yet its impact has not.

In the days beforehand, I took my youngest son away for two nights. A local family who barely knew us showed us extraordinary kindness and gave us somewhere peaceful to stay.

For two days, I could breathe.

As I drove home, I cried because I knew I was returning to the court proceedings, an unresolved police investigation and the continuing reality that leaving the relationship had not brought an end to the fear or control.

The Fifth Hearing

The hearing took place remotely because my ex had failed to attend the previous hearing in May.

I joined from work, in my nursing uniform, between patients.

My solicitor was unhappy that I was not attending the court building in person. However, I was already struggling significantly and was doing everything possible to remain functional, continue working and care for my children.

From my first meeting with my solicitor, I had been clear that I wanted a Section 7 report.

I wanted an independent professional to assess my child’s welfare and long-term safety.

When I was asked whether I really wanted somebody appointed to my child, my answer was clear.

Yes.

Absolutely yes.

Because he is my child.

Despite the language that had been used towards me, the control I had experienced and the repeated attempts to make me feel less entitled to protect him, he remained my child.

I needed somebody independent to examine the circumstances properly.

Eventually, Cafcass and the court directed that a Section 7 report should be completed.

That should have felt like a relief.

Instead, I left the hearing feeling as though I had become irrelevant.

My other children appeared irrelevant. The wider history appeared irrelevant. The safeguarding concerns I had tried to raise felt minimised, disputed or missed.

Allegations Made and Withdrawn

During the hearing, my ex made allegations to Cafcass concerning two members of my family.

Almost in the same breath, he retracted them.

The allegations were withdrawn, but they had still been spoken and heard.

That was what disturbed me.

A suggestion could be introduced and then withdrawn moments later, yet the impression created by it could remain.

Meanwhile, I felt that every word I used had to be carefully measured because anything unclear, emotional or poorly expressed could be recorded and relied upon long afterwards.

He could make an allegation and retract it almost immediately.

I did not feel I could afford one misplaced sentence.

The Wider Context

This was not happening without a wider history.

Before I left, I had experienced his misuse of alcohol and drugs directly. In 2022, he had also been disqualified from driving following an alcohol-related driving offence.

At the January hearing, the court IDVA made a comment suggesting that his decision to shave his head completely bald might have been connected to concerns about concealing evidence of alcohol or drug use.

That was the IDVA’s observation. It was not a finding made by the court, and I cannot state with certainty why he had shaved his head.

However, the comment remained in my mind because substance misuse was not an abstract concern to me. It formed part of the behaviour and instability I had experienced before leaving.

Against that background, I found it difficult to watch him continue to present himself solely as the injured and vulnerable party.

He was on police bail at the time.

In the hearing, he cried and presented himself as the devastated, wronged father.

Years earlier, before an assessment appointment, he had messaged me saying that he knew what to say because it was not his “first rodeo.”

I still have that message.

By July 2024, I recognised patterns in the way he presented information and emotion.

I could not know what he was privately thinking or feeling, but I knew what I had experienced behind closed doors. I also knew how different that experience was from the version of him being presented to professionals.

Being Seen as the Difficult One

This is my life, not a performance.

I cannot separate myself from the fear, history and consequences long enough to deliver everything as a neat, emotionally controlled account.

That is part of what people do not understand about hearings involving domestic abuse.

A person who appears composed and delivers a clear account may be regarded as credible.

A traumatised person may appear anxious, defensive, frustrated or overwhelmed.

One may be seen as reasonable.

The other may be seen as difficult.

I know because I felt as though I had become the difficult one.

My Own Representation

What I had not expected was to feel unsafe with my own legal representation.

My recollection is that my solicitor told me I did not “present” as a victim and that his barrister would rip me apart in the witness box.

That sentence has stayed with me.

How exactly is a victim supposed to present?

Broken enough to be believed, but not so broken that they are dismissed?

Calm enough to appear credible, but not so calm that their trauma is questioned?

Emotional enough to demonstrate harm, but not so emotional that they are labelled unstable, hostile or unreasonable?

There is no safe way to present once somebody has already decided what a victim should look like.

When I have said that the abuse continued through the legal process, people have sometimes misunderstood who I meant.

I need to be clear.

I am talking about the impact of my own representation.

Not his.

The person I had relied upon to represent me had become another reason I felt frightened, exposed and unheard.

Practice Direction 12J

I had asked for Practice Direction 12J and the domestic abuse concerns to be properly considered.

I also wanted the court to consider whether a fact-finding hearing was required before longer-term decisions about contact were made.

I did not believe those issues were being placed before the court in the way I had requested.

I eventually asked to speak to Cafcass alone because I no longer trusted that the safeguarding concerns would otherwise be clearly communicated.

Since the hearing, I have been trying to find another solicitor.

I am frightened by what can happen when somebody representing a victim does not appear to understand the dynamics of domestic abuse or the way legal proceedings can continue the impact of control after separation.

It does not feel like a simple disagreement about legal strategy.

It feels as though important parts of my case are being lost before they have been properly heard.

The Police Investigation

At the same time, I am still trying to understand what is happening with the police investigation.

My fourth investigating officer told me that the case was with the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.

I was later told that it had “met the threshold” for further investigation, which appeared to mean that it had not been sent to the CPS in the way I had previously understood.

Eight months after leaving, and after four investigating officers, I still cannot obtain a clear account of where the case stands.

Professional Standards have also been involved regarding the conduct of one officer.

I am therefore trying to navigate family court proceedings while dealing with an unresolved police investigation and concerns about the conduct of some of the people who were supposed to protect me.

When the Order Arrived

When the court order arrived, I could barely process it.

What I managed to read felt inappropriate and deeply upsetting.

I felt that my character had been presented through a version of events that reflected his narrative rather than the reality I had experienced.

I still have not been able to read all of it.

Following the order, I received correspondence requesting the first update under the arrangements that had been made.

The email arrived late on a Friday afternoon.

Of course it did.

By then, I had already left work and had not been able to return.

The hearing had broken something in me, and opening that email showed me how close to the surface the trauma remained.

There he was.

A photograph.

His face.

His eyes.

The man whose abuse still lives in my body.

The man whose control I am still trying to escape.

The man I avoid looking at in photographs, even where those photographs remain on my son’s wall.

I had to telephone a friend.

I became lightheaded.

I could not stand properly.

I could not breathe properly.

It felt as though everything I had been trying to recover from had suddenly been placed directly in front of me again.

Trauma Is Physical

This is the part people do not always understand about trauma.

It is not simply a memory.

It is physical.

It is immediate.

One photograph, one email or one unexpected reminder can put your body back into the danger before your mind has had time to understand what is happening.

It was not just a photograph.

It was a trigger.

A reminder.

A threat without words.

I kept asking myself why I was being sent photographs of him.

Why was I looking at a photograph of him in a suit when I had sold my belongings and my children’s toys to pay debts he had left behind?

Why was I looking at that image when he had accused me of financial control?

There had been a point when I struggled to afford food for my children, yet there he was, presented in a way that felt completely removed from the reality I had lived.

The worst part was his eyes.

His eyes haunt me.

That may sound dramatic to somebody who has not experienced trauma.

Those who have will understand exactly what I mean.

The Cost of Coping

The Community Mental Health Team prescribed Lorazepam because of the trauma associated with the police investigation and the ongoing court proceedings.

I took it for the first time after receiving that email.

I cried.

Not because I judge medication.

Medication can be necessary, and there should be no shame in needing it.

I cried because I realised that I now needed medication to cope with harm that other people had caused.

To cope with an email.

To cope with seeing his face.

To cope with the fact that he could still reach into my life through legal proceedings, correspondence, photographs and court orders.

Is this what my life has become?

Needing medication simply to tolerate the impact of a process that is supposed to protect children and victims of abuse?

Facing October

I am supposed to face him again in October.

I am frightened.

I am petrified of what it will do to me.

I am frightened that I will be there alone, trying to hold myself together while attempting to communicate the safeguarding concerns through a system that is supposed to protect my child.

He appears able to present himself calmly and persuasively.

I am trying to explain events that have left me traumatised and physically unwell.

I know what happened behind closed doors.

I know what the children experienced.

I know what it cost me to leave.

But knowing the truth and being able to make other people understand it are not the same thing.

What Will This Mean?

I do not know what the final decision will mean.

What will it mean for my child?

What will it mean for me?

What will it mean for the next fourteen years of my life?

This is not only about one hearing or one court order.

It is about the reality of post-separation abuse when the relationship has ended but the fear and control have not.

It is about family court becoming another route through which harm can continue when domestic abuse is not properly understood.

It is about being expected to remain calm, reasonable and functional while trying to explain experiences that have left you frightened and physically unwell.

Tonight, I do not feel strong.

I feel frightened.

I feel trapped.

I feel exhausted by the fact that leaving him was not the end of his control.

It was only the beginning of trying to prove it.